ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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I came across a recurring, general statement made halfway through this
article and elsewhere that wounds me every time I hear it. With all due
respect to Ms. Diamond, I would guess that most if not all scientists have
as a fundamental fiber of being the desire to explain to the public what
science is and how it applies to the real world.

How many times have I seen someone's eyes roll back in their head when I say
"I'm a scientist" in conversation? (I don't even attempt "experimental
polymer physical chemist"!) We live in a society that values computers,
automobiles, aircraft, cell phones, organ transplants, and the myriad
trappings of a scientific society. Yet the public is happy to say "oh, I'm
no good at math" or "science is too hard" or "even a C student can grow up
to be president" and accept without question that learning is someone else's
problem. Even in public communication, the defacto standard is a fifth grade
reading level. Wierd. Unsupportable, eventually.

The important part that science centers play seems to be this: People come
there ready to learn something. They come to the schools where scientists
teach to get a grade and a diploma. They go to work where scientists labor
to get a paycheck. They come to parties where scientists socialize to drink.
But they come to you ready to learn, at all ages child to adult. Keep up the
good work. Provide them an environment that stores and elucidates knowledge,
new and old. Let them walk out with as much learned, earned knowledge as
they wish. We scientists will continue to help make more.

Tom Twardowski.


-----Original Message-----
From: Informal Science Education Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Amanda Chesworth
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 4:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: museums - evo/cre


ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
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Museums teaching evolution to a sometimes-hostile public


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-evolution
museumdog_06nat.ART.State.Bulldog.d83eb5a.html
'If they're not teaching it in schools ... where are they going to get it?'


12:00 AM CST on Sunday, November 6, 2005

By LISA ANDERSON Chicago Tribune

NEW YORK - Natural history museums across the country are mounting new
exhibits they hope will succeed where high school biology classes have
faltered: convincing Americans that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is
a rigorously tested cornerstone of modern science.

At Chicago's Field Museum, curators call their upcoming effort "Evolving
Planet." The University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln calls its
program "Explore Evolution." And here at the American Museum of Natural
History, the exhibit that opens next month is called simply "Darwin."

Numerous battles in school districts across the country and a landmark
federal case unfolding in Pennsylvania, however, make one point clear: When
Darwin's widely accepted explanation of human development collides with
widely held religious belief about mankind's divine origins, nothing is
simple.

Even the word "evolution" is charged. Some religions, including Catholicism,
consider evolution essentially compatible with religious belief. But many
people consider it hostile to faith because it posits that all life on
Earth - including humans - shares common ancestry and developed through the
mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection over 4 billion years.

In a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 53 percent of adults surveyed said
"God created humans in their present form exactly the way the Bible
describes it." Thirty-one percent said humans evolved from other species
with God's guidance, and 12 percent said humans evolved without divine
intervention.

"In the past, we took the word 'evolution' out of our exhibits and said
'change through time.' We did that because we didn't want to incite
anything," said Ellen Censky, director of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of
Natural History at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

"But I think we have to use that word and say this is what science tells us.
If they're not teaching it in schools and we're not doing it, where are they
going to get it?"


"I don't think most scientists consider it a huge part of their job to try
to help the public understand scientific issues," said Judy Diamond,
professor and curator of the Nebraska state museum.

"I think everyone is realizing that we need to be doing a great deal more.
We just haven't made the effort to communicate evolution to people in terms
they can understand. Evolution is exciting."

Evolution does get people excited, but not always because of the thrill of
scientific discovery. In Kansas, fistfights have nearly broken out over the
state school board's imminent decision to expand the definition of science
to include the supernatural.

In Dover, Pa., pro-evolution teachers say they have been denounced as
"atheists" and worse on the streets of their once tight-knit little town.
And in Chicago, when the Field Museum presented an exhibit on human
evolution in 2000, a letter arrived "from North Carolina - one page, single
spaced, very tightly reasoned - and the last line was 'as a result, you will
burn in hell,' " said John McCarter Jr., the museum's president and chief
executive officer.

Natural history museums must address the lack of public understanding of
evolution as part of their public and scientific purpose, said Mr. McCarter.
As he put it: "If we don't, who else will?"

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